We awoke to another damp and misty start but knew we didn't have far to go to reach Lechlade and the navigable limit of the River Thames, just 2 locks to go through. We set off quite early, didn't bother with breakfast apart from coffee and biscuits as we knew we'd be in Lechlade pretty quickly and we'd sort something then.
In less than an hour we had passed through Buscot Lock which was very pretty and on self-service then at 10:30 we arrived at St John's Lock, the last one for us and where Old Father Thames resides!
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| Life's too Short in St John's Lock with Lechlade in the distance |
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| Old Father Thames |
Just 15 minutes later we were moored up on the meadow in Lechlade by Ha-penny Bridge. We took a rather long stroll through the town to fill a fuel tank but didn't bother with any grocery shopping.
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| Moored on the meadow by Ha'penny Bridge |
We were joined by some good friends and we had a lovely meal in the garden at The Riverside pub, then a little river trip to reach the official navigable limit of the River Thames. Smaller boats can continue further 'at risk' all the way to Cricklade, but it would soon be too shallow for us so we turned at the footbridge which denotes the limit.
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| The Navigation Limit of the River Thames |
Since leaving our marina at Caversham at midday on Wednesday we have travelled 71 miles, passed through 24 locks and climbed 116 feet 1 inch!
Late afternoon we decided to start heading back down river as the weather forecast for Sunday looked pretty poor and it would be wise to make the most of the dry conditions. This was short lived though, before we reached Buscot Lock the heavens had opened! The lock-keeper was great though and we were able to moor in the weir stream for the night rather than continue in poor visibility and getting ourselves drenched.
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| The weir stream at Buscot Lock |
We went to bed expecting a long, wet day tomorrow as the forecast was still promising a mix of heavy rain and showers!
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